Local authorities across Scotland have been advised to "place a hold" on frozen beef burgers following the discovery, and it means schools, council leisure facilities and some social care establishments have also been told not to use any current stocks they have of frozen beef products, including mince.

Mr Lochhead said after the meeting today: "EU Ministers discussed the option to extend the testing programme for a further two months beyond March and whilst no final decision has been taken, I spoke directly to the Commissioner to convey Scotland's strong support for this. It is vitally important that the tests continue until we are sure we have the complete picture across Europe.

"To date, we have had only one positive test in the public sector in Scotland and results for the whole of the food industry announced on Friday showed there have only been six new positive tests across the UK in the last week of testing.

"In the food processing sector in Scotland 96 per cent of the inspections of meat processing premises have now been carried out, with no evidence to date of horse meat food fraud occurring in food manufacturing in Scotland."

On Saturday, the Scottish Parliament confirmed that catering giant Sodexo, which withdrew beef from its UK sites after a frozen product tested positive for horse DNA, had supplied burgers to Holyrood.

A spokeswoman said that, while written assurance had been received from Sodexo that supplies to Holyrood are not affected, its beef burgers have been taken off the menu there as a "precautionary measure".

Mr Lochhead added: "The low numbers of positive tests are reassuring and the vast majority of product withdrawals from supermarket shelves, food providers and the public sector across UK and Europe have been on a purely precautionary basis while further testing is carried out.

"This is an entirely responsible approach by the food services industry while they ascertain whether or not they have been the victims of food fraud.

"While we obviously cannot guarantee that there will be no further positive tests in Scotland, the overwhelming majority of tests already carried out have been negative for horse meat.

"And although it is completely unacceptable that any food is not labelled correctly, we have to bear in mind that, based on current evidence, any health risks associated with having consumed horse meat are extremely low. This is crime and this is fraud, but it is not a health issue, and through these tests we are working to identify those responsible."

The EU talks were held as furniture giant Ikea was the latest company to be drawn into the scandal. It has withdrawn a batch of meatballs from sale in its UK stores after horse meat was discovered by Czech authorities.

The Swedish company said meatballs would still be available to buy in its stores and only one batch was being withdrawn as a precaution until further tests on it could be done.

The meatballs were labelled as beef and pork and were in one-kilogram frozen packs sent to the Czech Republic for sale in Ikea stores there.

The Czech Republic's state veterinary administration found traces of horse meat as part of its testing programme. A total of 760 kilos (1,675lbs) of the meatballs were stopped from reaching the shelves.